in one single moment your whole life can change

This was the most amazing story.

I died.

and as I wander down this road I take a turn

Today's forage into my children's workbooks had interesting results:

Word: Death
Definition: The end of life
Sentence Example: A lot of people have deaths.
Sentence Correction: (A teacher had fixed it.) A lot of people have slow deaths.

Now, I don't know if it's me, but that doesn't seem like the happiest sentence correction in the world. At the very least, it could have been switched to "fast."

Today's Article: The BBC determined, in 1999, that the world wasn't going to end. Read about it here.

Word of the Day: Kulak. A kulak is a Russian peasant wealthy enough to own land and/or hire labor. A ton of them got killed under Stalin.

Today's Lesson: Don't ever bet someone you know how to spell Kierkegaard's full name. You may think you do, but you don't.

my my, how can i resist you?

I have recently been going through my precious memories (or "junk" according to my mother) to lighten my load for my upcoming move. No matter that I don't know where I'll be moving or what I'll be doing – I know for sure that I won't be able to lug everything around. The sorting experience has reminded me of two conclusions:

1) I am a sentimental fool
2) I can delegate

Number one appears straightforward, but it's not as hopeless as it sounds. It's not that I'm materialistic and glued to my possessions – I'm just scared of losing all my memory prompts. This shred of paper reminds me of that time we ran around aimlessly laughing all afternoon. That trinket box was given to me by my best friend when I was eleven – what's she doing now? I used to use those stickers to imagine I was in a different world, one I'd forgotten about...

My belongings are my memories, my history and context: me. My memory is terrible, and without prompts, I'm afraid I'd forget so many experiences that have shaped me. People keep telling me that if I haven't noticed something is gone is storage for a few months, then it wasn't really important to me and I'll forget about it. But forgetting something doesn't mean it wasn't important. I don't just want to remember the watershed moments of my life; I want details, colors, moments.

Despite that nostalgic spiel, I don't mind delegating a lot of my stuff. Instead of throwing my stuff away, I have started giving it away. (You're welcome Hannah, mom, dad, Emma, Lex...). Yup. Problem is, everyone I know is in different states and countries, so that was quite a bill.

Shout Out: To Emma Cole and FosterMcnealy0426. Yes, FosterMcnealy has left me my second unintelligible comment, which I greatly appreciate (though I would love to read it...)

And Emma Cole: in the blog world you're quite well known as an HIV survivor. Online, you're also quite a creepy novel writer. In my world you're just another sarcastic redhead who grew up in Japan and occasionally channels a prepubescent male named Louis. Go figure.

she had that look upon her face

So the kiddies have been coming up with more amusing definitions for their vocab words. I don't know why they don't just look the words up – clearly their definition inventing hasn't worked so far.

A recent favorite:
Manage: Having mange.

Having mange? Really?
And then there was:

Hipster: A cool hippy
Sentence example: The hipsters tried to stop global warming.

I don't know why, but that one really got to me. That's who's been fighting the global war battle – the cool hippies. Yeah, I buy that.

And then, there were the great conversations. I taught two of the girls, Hannah and Jessica, an Arabic word. Jessica looked at me.
"Are you Arabic?"
"Do I look Arabic?" I asked (quite reasonably I think.)
"Are you Arabic?"
"Do I look Arabic?"
"But are you Arabic?"
"Do I look Arabic?"

It seriously went back and forth like that at least five times. Finally I gave up and told her I wasn't. Or maybe I lied, I don't really remember.

Life Lesson: Macaroni and Cheese never NEVER tastes as good reheated. Just gulp down the whole box, because later it's going to be strangely chewy and the flavors will start assaulting each other.

Arkansas Arkansas, I just love old Arkansas...

Yes, this post's title is real lyrics. Big River, freshman year, Drew someone or other with medium blond hair and a lilt to his skip.

I was looking up what people from Arkansas were called (yes, I was having a moment – but consider Connecticut. People should think these things out before they slap on any old name (original Cherokee or not. which, in this case, I think not.)) But I deviate.

Anyways, I typed in "What are people" and the Google prompt immediately offered me a million ways to end the phrase, completely distracting me (as usual). Google is not very ADD friendly. Start typing "Why can't" and suggestion #2 is "Why can't I own a Canadian?" – anyone with a sense of curiosity is going to click on that over whatever metaphysical question he/she was originally wondering.

So, on my Arkansas hunt, Google's first suggestion was "What are people looking for?" I marveled at the gutsiness of the search engine in tackling such a profound life issue. Visions of Google Philosophy – all your questions answered – danced in my head. After all, if anything knows everything, it's Google (along with Oprah and my father).


Google Philosophy: At GP, we know life can be confusing. There are so many philosophers out there, but who has the time to read them or the degree to understand them? Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Hobbes, Kant, Plato, Descartes, Kierkegaard – their names are often foreign and unwieldy, akin to Santa's reindeer, not real people.

This world is complicated enough, why exacerbate it by slogging through old people's writings? That's why GP has sifted through four thousand of the greatest philosophers and hand-picked their best thoughts, combining them into the ultimate bite-sized life philosophies. Every query is answered in one simple, fully linked paragraph.

Or you can just watch this video:




This post has turned into quite a jumbled mess of words. I would like – nay, love – to describe it as esoteric, but I think "deviant" would be far more appropriate. When the garrulity of my verbal expression seeps into my writing, problems always arise. Namely, I lose any sense of coherency and have been rejected by my organizational medium. (Not a witch, though that would be interesting. Ultimate PA)

But seriously, why can't I own a Canadian?

It's been a long time, now I'm...

Coming back home. Or, coming back to blogging, I should say. I have no desire to make a public declaration of how often I'll be blogging (seeing as my original "once a day" intention has proven unrealistic), but I hope to increase the frequency. Please bear with me, as I am dealing with mild self-loathing over becoming the blogger who blogs about how often she blogs even though she appears to have no readers.

Well folks, appearances can be deceiving. I have many readers, they are just silent (and occasionally stalkerish). Proof? My last post received a comment in another language. Clearly I am reaching international audiences – even if it was spam or a notice telling me my pictures have been infringing copyright, I'm still well pleased. Yes, well pleased.

This entry is short because I'm at work anticipating the arrival of the possessed imps I'm attempting to mold into proper humans. Sigh.

I've been writing for Associated Content recently (or sticking old stuff up); check out my Youtube article.

Quote of the Day: "We can accept man as a fact, if we are content with an unexplained fact. We can accept him as an animal, if we can live with a fabulous animal."
–Chesterton, The Everlasting Man